Building Relationships Across Cultures

One of the greatest privileges that comes from serving with Crosspoint Church is the opportunity to build relationships with a diverse group of people within the community. Living in a college town, we are blessed with the presence of international students from countries all over the world. I've thoroughly enjoyed getting to know many of these students at different international events throughout the year.

Over Spring Break, Generation LINK staff and Clemson students had the opportunity to continue building these relationships on the spring break trip, The Great Southern Adventure. While touring Atlanta, Savannah, and Charleston, we had numerous opportunities to have good conversations and have fun with international students. There were so many highlights to the trip, but I'd love to share a few that were especially meaningful for me.

Sunday morning we joined Blueprint Church, a church in downtown Atlanta, for worship. Several internationals decided to join us and we even had two Muslim women ask if it was ok for them to come. It was very exciting to see their openness to Christianity expressed in this way. Before service, my roommate and I were able to have a great conversation with an international student staying in our room. What began as questions about her personal beliefs, led us to a presentation of the gospel and further questions. After sharing the good news of Jesus Christ, she asked us questions about Christianity compared to other religions, and she desired to know how she could be certain that it was the only way. The conversation went on for almost an hour before church. My roommate and I were both very challenged but very encouraged by the conversation and it set a great tone for intentionality the rest of the week.

My second favorite experience of the trip was an opportunity the Lord presented while visiting Folly Beach. Several American and international women went for a walk down the beach and as the walk progressed we slowly broke off into pairs. I had the opportunity to enter into a spiritual conversation and ultimately share the gospel with a Chinese student with whom I was walking. I was blown away by her interest in spiritual things and desire to talk about Jesus and the Bible. Since the trip, she has joined us for International Women's Time as well as worship at Crosspoint.

It's very exciting to see the Lord graciously providing fruit from this trip in many different ways. Students from the trip are full of stories of great conversations and relationships built with Internationals in our community. Please pray as we continue to engage them in relationships and seek to share truth with them. We have been blessed with such a unique opportunity by living here in Clemson with these students, and we pray expectantly that the Lord will draw some of them to himself for His glory.




Post by Kimberly Sherman